étrangère | a transgenerational poem

a body is never an empty thing

plaything

mouldthing

empty

never

I was born with my father and my mother inside of me

a past that I lived in

grew in

that is not mine

and yet belongs to me

and in my body

I seek places of mine

architecture where ruins unfold

I am called to every single room

where the dead refuse to sleep

the light turns itself on

as I move in and out

creaks and cackles

the sculpture of old

and I hear my name in voices unknown

I can’t find my shoes

mirrors long for a face to remember

photographs beg for a new view

take me off the wall

eyes in the corner of a room

want their names to be said out loud

strands of hair beneath my naked feet

there is a scent in the carpet

older than just one person

skeleton beds without mattresses

liquids made their ways into the mustard clouds

and I collect objects from every single room

each room wants me to stay

because they can’t leave

everything within them

has not been told

silence is a heap of earth and dirt

one on top of the other

and they hold on to everything that can move and speak

they flicker around my head

swoosh across my fingernails

my mother contains bodies other than her own

my father carries faces long gone

and I am baptised in a house of horror and love

a body is never an empty thing